Kitabı oku: «Ironcrown Moon: Part Two of the Boreal Moon Tale»
Ironcrown Moon
THE BOREAL MOON TALE BOOK TWO
Julian May
Table of Contents
Title Page
FINAL VERSE OF THE BLOSSOM MOON SONG, AN ANCIENT CATHRAN BALLAD
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
About the Author
By Julian May
Copyright
About the Publisher
FINAL VERSE OF THE BLOSSOM MOON SONG, AN ANCIENT CATHRAN BALLAD
Down in the waters, cold and deep.
My true love has gone to eternal sleep Long will I wait for his returning, Hoping, my heart afire with yearning
In Blossom Moon, in Blossom Moon, it will never be.
PROLOGUE
The Royal Intelligencer
An unexpected thing happened last night.
As is my habit, I had been working long hours on my Boreal Moon Tale, struggling along despite cramped fingers, dimming eyesight, and the daunting magnitude of the writing project I had set myself at a time when most old men are content to doze and dream. But I have more reason than most to wish my story told to the world – most specifically to the inhabitants of High Blenholme, island of my birth, whose official Chronicle will no doubt be turned all arsey-versey by my mischievous revelations.
I had laid aside my quill after describing the chain of improbable events leading to King Conrig Wincantor’s establishment of the Blenholme Sovereignty, thinking this would be an appropriate place to break the narrative and end the first book of the tale. It was very late and bracingly cool, as nights tend to be during midwinter months in southern Foraile, and the air was laden with the sweet scent of moth-jasmine. Oddly – though I did not fully appreciate the fact until later when I went outdoors the night was almost completely silent. The usual sounds made by nocturnal birds and insects were absent and the murmur of the nearby Daravara River was muted.
After sanding the final closely written parchment sheet, I added it to the rest and locked the manuscript in the copper box that preserves it from the mice and palm roaches that would otherwise make a meal of it. I rose from my desk, paused to work the worst knots from my aching muscles, and blew out the bright flame of the brass desk lamp, plunging the room into near-darkness. A faint illumination came from the lantern that my peg-legged housecarl Borve leaves lit at the far end of the hall to guide me to bed. That was usual. What was not usual was the odd flickering glow coming through the window that looked northward toward the river. The crescent moon had set early and thick foliage made it difficult to see outside. My first thought was of wildfire, since the light was too ruddy and fitful to be starshine. The rains were late this year and the scrubby hills above the jungle valley were tinder-dry. I made haste to the door, slipped outside onto the veranda, and went down the short flight of steps into my riverside garden so as to have a clear view of the opposite shore.
The northern sky was ablaze with immense rippling curtains and thrusting beams of scarlet, green, amethyst and flame-gold, so bright that they dimmed the stars, so active and intricate in their movements that every instinct of the beholder seemed to affirm that this was no mere natural phenomenon, but the work of elemental living beings.
I knew who they were, what they had been – those shining abominations who had fed on pain!
The people of High Blenholme gave them various names: the Beaconfolk, the Coldlight Army, the Great Lights. Their domain is the far north, the arctic barrens and the island in the Boreal Sea from which I had been banished. Never had I seen the Lights during my enforced sojourn on the southern mainland. Early on in my exile, when I had cautiously questioned my manservant Borve about folkloric beliefs in this part of the world, he made no mention of terrible sky-beings in the local pantheon of demons and demigods. Yet here they were, transforming the night of subtropical Foraile into a facsimile of the incandescent heavens above the northland. Was it possible that I was dreaming? I hardly thought so, but it would not be the first time that nightmares provoked by the evil ones among the Beaconfolk had tormented me.
Still less did it seem they should be able to manifest themselves here, so far south! Their once-mighty powers were circumscribed now, pent-up and curtailed so that the pain-eating predators among them might no longer slake their obscene appetites upon humans and other ground-dwelling beings. And yet I seemed to feel something reaching for me, grasping my poor pounding heart with claws of ice and slowly – so slowly – tightening its grip. The chest spasm was tentative and entirely bearable, but my feeble old legs now refused to support my body and I subsided onto my knees, eyes still locked onto that dreadful blazing sky.
I have said that the night was strangely quiet. I was aware of this anomaly almost at the same time that I realized it was not quite true. A ghostly sound was discernible at the very limit of audibility, a sibilance that ebbed and flowed like surf, all the while overlaid with a complex rustling that almost resembled speech. I had first heard its like some sixty years ago, as I lay dying on the Desolation Coast of Tarn. The Coldlight Army had blazed above me then in all its awful strength, jeering at my mortal frailty, ridiculing the notion that a pathetic creature such as I might be able to frustrate its devilish entertainment.
‘But I survived in spite of you!’ I managed to croak, shaking a fist at them. ‘I used your own twisty rules of magic to thwart your schemes. Do you want to know how? It’s simple: I never told you my true name! I’m Snudge, but I’m not Snudge. What d’you think of that, Lights?’
Above me the luminous draperies and glorious colored beacons flared in response to my puny effort at defiance. The faint crackling sound intensified momentarily and I felt a crushing agony behind my breastbone. The pang subsided almost at once and I slowly exhaled, sagging back onto my heels and then sprawling sideways to rest against the trunk of a small tree, eyes shut tight.
Was the pain really of their doing, or was my aging heart simply giving out at last as I dreamt of my old enemies? I waited motionless, in fearful anticipation of a more violent attack that would finish me; but none came, and at length I relaxed, reassuring myself that the lethal capabilities of the Lights were indeed extinct. They could do me no serious harm. I, Deveron Austrey, called Snudge, would live.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that the sky was empty except for the rich expanse of southern stars.
The grand scheme to unite the four disparate realms of High Blenholme into a single Sovereignty was conceived by my first master, Conrig Wincantor, later to be nicknamed Ironcrown, while he was still very young.
Growing up as Prince Heritor of Cathra, the richest and most powerful of the island realms, Conrig idolized his remote ancestor Emperor Bazekoy, the towering personality who first vanquished the great Continental nations of Foraile, Andradh, and Stippen, then set out to wrest control of Blenholme from the Salka and the other nonhuman monsters who had inhabited the place since the dawn of time. The year that Bazekoy’s conquering army sailed up the River Brent marked the beginning of the Blenholme Chronicle.
After a long and glorious life, the emperor chose to return to the island to die – influenced, according to legend, by a dream of Great Lights. Over a thousand years later his remains, interred in Zeth Abbey, were destined to play a strangely influential role in the life of Conrig’s father, King Olmigon of Cathra – as I have already described in the first volume of this Boreal Moon Tale.
Conrig’s own reign began in Chronicle Year 1128, with a triumph and what seemed to be an appalling tragedy. A great sea-battle and a climactic storm in Cala Bay resulted in the defeat of King Honigalus Mallburn of Didion and forced that ill-fated monarch to accept vassal status in Conrig’s new Sovereignty of High Blenholme. As a condition of Didion’s surrender at Eagleroost Castle, in a move that stunned most of the high nobility of Cathra, Conrig divorced his Tarnian wife Maudrayne Northkeep – presumed by him to be barren after six years of turbulent marriage – and pledged to wed Princess Risalla, the younger half-sister of Honigalus.
Although I was only sixteen years of age at the time, I was already closely attendant upon Conrig and serving unofficially as his Royal Intelligencer by virtue of my secret wild talents. Thus I was one of the horrified witnesses who saw Maudrayne calmly put her name to the bill of divorcement, then throw herself off the castle battlements into the wintry sea forty ells below.
I was also a member of the large party who subsequently combed the ice-covered shore rocks for Maudrayne’s body. My uncanny seekersense was then extremely powerful; nevertheless I was unable to detect any trace of the poor suicide. In the days that followed, both the Brothers of Zeth and Conjure-Queen Ullanoth of Moss utilized their magical talents to hunt for the woman Conrig now termed the Princess Dowager, scrutinizing not only the shoreline but also the interior regions of the island, on the improbable chance that she had somehow survived. The searchers found nothing. It was decided that the body must have been carried far out into Cala Bay, to be lost in the frigid depths.
After a month of official mourning, Conrig quietly married Risalla Mallburn. His profound condolences had been dispatched to Tarn, Maudrayne’s birthplace and the only island nation not yet accepting the Edict of Sovereignty. Tarn’s ruler, the High Sealord Sernin Donorvale, reacted with predictable fury to his favorite niece’s public humiliation. In the year following her presumed death, Sernin rebuffed Conrig’s demands that Tarn join Cathra, Didion, and Moss in a unified High Blenholme, even when the Sovereignty ‘reluctantly’ cut off trade with his corner of the island, leaving Tarn at the mercy of rapacious mainland merchants and pirates. Forced to purchase food and other needful commodities from the Continent at inflated prices, the once-wealthy domain grew more and more impoverished and vulnerable.
The injurious effects of the Wolf’s Breath volcanic eruptions which had caused widespread crop failures on the island, shut down Tarn’s all-important gold mines, and precipitated the political upheaval that inspired Conrig’s scheme of unification – were now only a bad memory. Eastern Didion recovered from the famine that had devastated its largest cities. Its pragmatic ruler, Honigalus, rebuilt the capital city of Holt Mallburn that had been devastated by Conrig’s invading army. He regained the trust of Didion’s independent-minded timberlords, whose cooperation was vital to the restoration of his country’s shipbuilding industry, paid off the war reparations demanded by Conrig by building a new fleet of naval vessels for the Sovereignty, and did his best to keep a lid on his fiery younger brother Prince Somarus, who remained implacably opposed to Conrig’s hegemony and considered Honigalus a traitor for having capitulated.
In the tiny kingdom of Moss, which enjoyed First Vassal status in the Sovereignty thanks to Conjure-Queen Ullanoth’s magical assistance to Conrig during the war with Didion, things were apparently tranquil. The queen’s insanely ambitious younger brother Beynor, who had briefly occupied the throne until his imprudent ventures into high sorcery incurred the displeasure of the Beaconfolk, had fled to the desolate Dawntide Isles to live with the Salka monsters. Whenever she gathered strength enough to pay the pain-price to the Beaconfolk, Queen Ullanoth made use of a powerful magical tool, the moonstone sigil Subtle Loophole, to keep watch on Beynor…and to observe other events transpiring here and there about High Blenholme. Part of this intelligence she shared with her sometime lover, High King Conrig. The rest of it she kept to herself, while she quietly pursued thaumaturgical studies and pondered the possibility of seizing control of the Sovereignty herself when the time was ripe.
Early in the spring of 1130, when most Tarnian ports remained icebound and the majority of that nation’s fighting ships were still hauled up ashore, High Sealord Sernin learned that a large fleet of freebooters had set sail from Andradh on the Continent, intending to seize Tarnholme and the other important port cities of Goodfortune Bay – the only section of the Tarnian coast that remained reliably unfrozen in winter. Poised in the mountains above Tarnholme to reinforce the sea invasion was a ragtag but formidable army of insurgent warriors loyal to Prince Somarus, led by robber-barons of western Didion.
Facing an impossible situation, Sernin and his Company of Equals swallowed their pride and sought aid from the Sovereignty, pledging fealty in return. Conrig agreed only after Tarn bowed to draconian conditions. The High King dispatched his new navy to beat off the Andradhians, and commanded his Royal Alchymist to bespeak the hedge-wizards attending rebellious Prince Somarus, warning of nasty consequences if his fighters pressed their attack on Tarn.
The Continental freebooters were soundly defeated at sea, while the prince’s outlaw Didionite land-force scuttled back over the White Rime Mountains into the wilderness of the Great Wold, never having unsheathed their swords.
While these events transpired, I myself grew from a youth into a man. My wild talents ripened with maturity, known only to my royal master Conrig, to his brother Stergos who had become the Royal Alchymist, and to a handful of other trusted intimates of the High King.
During those early years of Conrig Ironcrown’s reign, my duties were important but rather humdrum. I spent most of my time spying on Cathra’s quarrelsome Lords of the Southern Shore, holders of the original fiefdoms established under Bazekoy over a millennium ago. This group of affluent merchant-peers, who had played only a minor role in the establishment of the Sovereignty, remained a continuing thorn in the High King’s side because the ancient laws of Cathra made it difficult for the Crown to increase taxes on their considerable revenues. Also, unlike the rest of the nobility, the Lords of the Southern Shore possessed the immemorial right to veto changes in the Codex of Zeth, the charter affirming the rights and privileges of Cathran aristocracy and defining limits of regal authority – including the succession to the throne. It was the Codex that specifically excluded anyone possessing the least whiff of magical talent from Cathra’s kingship. This rule dated from Bazekoy’s time, and prevailed in Tarn and in Didion as well. Only Moss, youngest of Blenholme’s nations and founded by a brilliant sorcerer, was an exception.
Less than a year after Conrig’s second marriage, High Queen Risalla gave birth to a strapping son who was named Bramlow. Unfortunately Lord Stergos, the Royal Alchymist, almost immediately determined that the child had moderate arcane powers. In a move that surprised and bewildered his Privy Council and loyalist nobility, the High King pressured the Lords of the South to amend the Codex so the boy could be named Prince Heritor in spite of his talent. The lords refused, backed up by the powerful Brethren of the Mystic Order of Zeth, who inflamed the sentiments of the common people against the king’s dubious proposal. In the end, Bramlow was consecrated to the Order as an acolyte, the inevitable fate of windtalented royal offspring.
Excepting Conrig himself…
Oh, yes. My royal master was himself possessed of an all-but-insignificant portion of magical aptitude, imperceptible to the scrutiny of the Brothers. His urgent push to amend the Codex in Prince Bramlow’s favor was actually an attempt to safeguard his own position as High King of Cathra and Sovereign of Blenholme, in case his great secret should be revealed.
I, with my own undetectable ‘wild’ powers, had discovered Prince Heritor Conrig’s puny talent by accident years earlier – and almost paid for it with my life. Instead, the prince decided to make me his personal snudge, or spy. Later, I inadvertently betrayed my master to his older brother Stergos, who kept the perilous confidence in spite of serious misgivings.
Ullanoth of Moss, the beautiful young sorceress who later became that nation’s Conjure-Queen, also knew about the king’s talent, but had motives of her own for not disclosing it. Only two other persons had found out Conrig’s secret: his first wife Maudrayne, whom he believed to be dead, and her friend the Tarnian High Shaman Ansel Pikan, who was very much alive. So far, Ansel had also kept silent. But he remained a potential threat who might possibly betray Conrig and precipitate the dissolution of the Sovereignty. Killing the powerful shaman was no easy option. The only person who might be capable of doing the deed, Ullanoth herself, demurred for fear of offending the touchy Beaconfolk, who were the source of her powers. She did counsel Conrig with the obvious solution to his dilemma: sire a ‘normal’ son as soon as possible. Then, if worse came to worse, the attainted High King could abdicate in favor of the infant Prince Heritor and make use of an obscure point of law to declare himself regent, preserving his grip on the Sovereignty for at least twenty years, until his son’s majority.
Two years after Bramlow’s birth, in 1131, High Queen Risalla was delivered of healthy male twins who were named Orrion and Corodon. Lord Stergos and the other Brothers of Zeth who examined the babies pronounced both of them free from magical talent. Orrion, the elder by half an hour, was affirmed as Prince Heritor.
Unfortunately, the Brethren were mistaken in their assessment of the twins – as I learned to my dismay when I first beheld their tiny faces. As with their father Conrig, I was able to perceive that the infant boys had the faint but unmistakable spark of talent in their eyes. It was my clear duty to inform the king, but perhaps understandable that I should have delayed making the dire announcement. Knowing about Conrig’s own hidden talent had already placed my life at grave risk; if I confessed to knowledge of his newborn sons’ taint as well, who knew what my liege lord might do?
As it happened, I was spared the unwelcome task by none other than Queen Ullanoth, who had scried the little boys from a distance with the powerful moonstone sigil named Subtle Loophole. After confirming her discovery, she did not hesitate to tell Conrig the truth about the twins. She advised the dismayed king to keep the matter secret, continue pressing for a change in the law of succession…and beget still more offspring. In appreciation of the Conjure-Queen’s wholehearted pledge of silence, Conrig doubled the annual benefice already vouchsafed to her loyal but needy little realm in exchange for magical services rendered.
Thus it appeared, as the fateful summer of 1133 began, that most of the problems that had threatened to undermine Conrig Ironcrown and his fledgling Sovereignty were well under control. The realm of Cathra enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. Thanks in part to my own underhanded activities, there was a welcome respite in the intrigues and machinations of the Lords of the Southern Shore. High Queen Risalla was happily pregnant again. Didion’s fractious robber-barons were quiet, licking their wounds following yet another failed small insurrection by Prince Somarus. Embittered Tarn seemed finally resigned to its vassal status and paid its exorbitant taxes without a murmur. The Continental nations had apparently shelved their expansionist schemes for the time being and were content to engage in orderly trade. Even the Dawntide Salka monsters were lying low, not having raided the shore settlements of Moss for over a year, thanks to fierce storms created by Conjure-Queen Ullanoth and a sharp retaliatory strike on the islands by the Sovereign’s navy under Lord Admiral Hartrig Skellhaven.
I myself was a contented man that year, celebrating my twentieth birthday and entry into adulthood on the second day of Blossom Moon.
As part of the great Summer Solstice festival a few weeks later, I was initiated into knighthood together with fifteen other armigers from all parts of Cathra, becoming Sir Deveron Austrey. We received the accolade at the traditional ceremony at noon on Midsummer Eve. To my surprise, I was not made a simple Bachelor like the others but was created a Knight Banneret of the Royal Household in recognition of my confidential services to the Crown. The commander’s honors included a velvet purse containing a hundred gold double-marks, twice the boon vouchsafed to the Knights Bachelor; a smallish fortified manor house called Buttonoaks with a freehold of six hundred goodly acres, situated in the rolling hills below Swan Lake, which was supposed to provide me with a decent income and a place to live when I was not needed at the palace; and the services of two armigers rather than one, together with an apprentice windvoice who would ostensibly enable me to communicate with my superiors via the arcane network of Zeth Brethren. (My own windtalents were, of course, a state secret.)
After the dubbing ceremony, High King Conrig kindly suggested that I quit the court for several weeks and visit my new demesne, which lay less than three days’ easy journey to the north. With the realm at peace and likely to remain so for some time to come, the king anticipated no immediate need for my particular services.
I agreed to the idea eagerly and made ready to leave at once, glad of the chance to avoid the elaborate Solstice banquet and the many entertainments that would take place over the next several days. I found the pomp and splendor of court festivities tedious. In my rôle of Royal Intelligencer, I often moved among the great ones of the Sovereignty; but I had been born a commoner of low estate, the son of a palace harnessmaker, and preferred more modest pleasures.
I invited a close friend, Sir Gavlok Whitfell, to accompany me on my tour of inspection. He was another who esteemed the simple life and was glad of a chance to spend time in the country. Together with our youthful attendants, Gavlok and I left Cala Blenholme city about the sixth hour on Solstice Eve, heading north toward the Swan Lake region. My armigers Val and Wil, and my windvoice Vra-Mattis, newly come to the palace from Vanguard and Blackhorse duchies and Zeth Abbey respectively, were still unfamiliar to me. But they all seemed to be biddable lads and I looked forward to getting to know them better.
I was in a fine humor, anticipating exploration of my manor in the company of congenial men. For a short time at least, I would answer to no master but myself.
ONE
The great outdoor feast in the Cala Palace gardens had come to its conclusion by the tenth hour of Solstice Eve. While servitors dismantled the banquet boards, re-arranged the chairs and benches, and laid out the hardwood dancing floor with its flower-decked standards and strings of twinkling lanterns, the throng of high-born guests slipped away to chambers of ease inside Cala Palace to refresh themselves before the music began.
In the royal retirement room adjacent to the great hall, High Queen Risalla sat at a dressing table enduring the attentions of her personal maid, who was rearranging her hair. The Sovereign himself rested on a padded long chair, seeming to be lost in deep thought. He had hardly exchanged a dozen words with the queen since they had left the gardens. The room was warm and he wore only his black undertunic, hose, and soft ankle-boots, having shed his ornate overrobe of black tissue velvet with white gold ornamentation. His valet was busy daubing spirits of wine on a grease spot on one of the sleeves.
‘Sire,’ the queen said, ‘I have a special request to make of you.’
Conrig frowned absently. ‘What is it, madam?’ He had significant concerns of his own this evening, following a brief confidential talk with Earl Marshal Parlian Beorbrook towards the end of the feast. And there was also Ullanoth’s impending visitation…
‘I’m concerned about our children. With so many special events going on today, I had no time to look in on them. Your Reverend Brother dosed the boys with a physick he declared would surely cure them of their catarrh, and it’s true that Bramlow and Corodon seemed well on the road to recovery yesterday. But I’m worried about little Orry. He’s so much more delicate than the others.’
‘Send a page to inquire how the lad does,’ the preoccupied king said, only half listening.
Risalla waved the maid away, rose from her stool, and came to stand beside her husband. She was a woman of five-and-twenty whose face often seemed bland and plain in repose; but when she was animated, as now, her cornflower-blue eyes glowed with a disconcerting vigor. For the festivities she was attired in a high-waisted gown that revealed nothing of her six-month pregnancy. It was made of violet silk, embroidered about the low neckline with a pattern of vine leaves picked out in gold thread. A chain supporting a single large diamond pendant hung at her throat. Her honey-colored hair was dressed in a high coil of braids adorned with tiny twinkling sprays of gold wire and amethyst brilliants. A delicate golden diadem, yet to be pinned into place, waited on the dressing table.
‘No, husband,’ she said firmly. ‘Sending a page won’t do. I insist on going to the nursery myself, before Orrion and the others are put to bed. Do come with me! You haven’t visited the children all week.’
‘It won’t be long before the dancing begins,’ Conrig objected. ‘We have to step out first, as well you know. And after that we must prepare for the special visitation of the Queen of Moss.’
Risalla’s lips tightened in determination. ‘The housemen are only beginning to put up the lanterns around the dance ground. There’s ample time.’ She took his hand, drawing him to his feet. ‘Surely the Prince Heritor of Cathra is deserving of your sovereign attention.’
Something flickered in Conrig’s dark eyes. But then he let a slow, wintry smile soften his face. He was a tall man and well built, still youthful in appearance at thirty years of age, fine-featured with a short beard and hair the color of ripe wheat. The famous iron crown, originally the rusty top hoop on a small cask of tarnblaze but now polished and given a handsome blue-heat finish, lay unobtrusively on his brow.
‘Dear madam, you defeat me once again. We’ll surprise the little rascals at their supper, and I don’t doubt that we’ll find all of them in good fettle, save for their disappointment at having to miss the Solstice celebration.’ He said to the valet, ‘Trey, summon my escort. And carry on scraping off that splash of gravy while I’m gone.’
‘Thank you, sire – dearest husband.’ Risalla spoke with every evidence of humble diffidence before adding in a drier tone, ‘After all, it’s not as though the dancing could begin without us. And Conjure-Queen Ullanoth is a very patient woman…or so I’ve heard.’
Conrig Wincantor, Sovereign of High Blenholme, stood with his wife outside the closed door to the royal nursery. A look of contained chagrin stiffened his features. Shrieks of childish laughter, furious shouts from an adult female, and the sounds of smashing crockery were audible through the thick oaken planking. The household knights of the royal escort kept straight faces with difficulty, while the two palace guards on duty in the corridor came to attention and smote their polished cuirasses in salute.
Inside the nursery, there was a jarring thud and someone began to scream hysterically. A shrill voice cried, ‘I’ll catch him!’
‘Oh, my,’ Queen Risalla murmured, with a sidelong glance at the king.
Conrig scowled and addressed the senior door guard. ‘What the devil is going on in there, Sergeant Mendos?’
‘I ‘spect it’s the monkey, Your Grace,’ said the guardsman, his countenance wooden. ‘Little Prince Bramlow commanded that it join them for supper. Viscountess Taria’s abed today with a megrim and the younger ladies and the nursemaids haven’t a lick o’ sense among the lot of ‘em, so they agreed. Silly wenches thought it’d be fun to see the wee beast sit down at table with the royal lads. Cheer ‘em up, like, since they couldn’t attend the festival. I said it was a bad idea –’
‘Bazekoy’s Bones!’ growled the king. ‘Where’s the creature’s keeper?’
‘Gone away, sire. The young ladies made him leave. He didn’t want to let the monkey off its chain, y’see, and Their Graces insisted.’
‘Fetch the stupid cullion,’ Conrig snapped. ‘I’ll teach him to tend to his duty!’ He hauled the door open and entered the nursery, followed by the queen. The knights of the royal escort tactfully remained in the corridor.
The large suite of rooms housing the royal children was illuminated by mellow twilight entering through open casement windows. On a food-splattered but otherwise empty table in the center of the supper area stood a sturdy boy some four years of age: Prince Bramlow, the oldest son of Conrig and Risalla. He was barefoot, wearing a red nightrobe as befitted an acolyte of Zeth, and held a bunched tablecloth in his hands as he stared keenly up at the unlit iron chandelier overhead.
A monkey the size of a large housecat sat on one of the candle-arms. It clutched a bowl of strawberries and chittered with evil glee as it pelted the human inhabitants of the room with well-aimed pieces of fruit. The floor around the table was littered with capsized furniture, broken plates, cups, spoons, and scattered cushions – all commingled in a soggy mass of spilt porridge, slices of bread, mashed berries, and a pool of milk spreading from a cracked pitcher.
Two very young ladies-in-waiting huddled together behind a wooden settle, weeping, their fine clothes rumpled and splashed with berry juice. A third noblewoman, somewhat older, stood with her back to the far wall. The giggling two-year-old boy struggling in her arms was Prince Heritor Orrion, who seemed to be in good health. His twin brother Corodon jumped up and down and squealed with laughter. A pair of nursemaids approached the table, glaring up at the monkey. One maid brandished a broom and the other held a clothes basket at the ready.
‘Here goes!’ Bramlow cried out to them, shaking the tablecloth he held. The piece of fabric billowed, soared from his hands like a living thing, and wrapped itself neatly about the simian vandal, who tumbled into the waiting basket with a muffled howl. The two younger princes clapped their hands and cheered. Bramlow hopped off the table, bowed formally to the king and queen, and stood there grinning as the triumphant nursemaids carried the struggling captive out of the room. The unencumbered ladies-in-waiting made deep curtsies and waited, their faces now full of dread. The woman holding Prince Orrion set him on his feet at a gesture from the queen.
Risalla said, ‘Nalise, Erminy, Vedrea, you may leave us. Wait outside until you’re summoned.’ The ladies fled, closing the door behind them, and the queen regarded her sons with a sad expression. ‘You children have been very wicked.’
‘Yes, Mama,’ the three of them chorused. The younger boys looked frightened and stood close together, hand in hand. They were not identical: Prince Heritor Orrion was slightly smaller than his twin brother, plain-featured and sandy-haired like Bramlow, while Corodon had his father’s striking good looks and hair so fair it shone like silver.
‘Wicked,’ Conrig repeated in a terrible soft voice. ‘But especially you, Bramlow. And you know why.’
The older boy lifted his chin. ‘Yes, sire. It was bad to use talent to catch the monkey. But –’
‘Only an ordained Brother of Zeth, dedicated to the service of the realm and pledged to harm no human person, may use overt forms of windtalent. A child who uses overt talent for vain or silly reasons commits a serious sin.’ Conrig’s voice deepened and Bramlow winced. ‘A royal child who dares to exhibit overt talent in front of others, reminding them that one of our ancestors tainted the blood by mating with a nonhuman, comes very close to committing treason. Even though you’re still too young to go to Zeth Abbey and begin your arcane studies, you are old enough to know right from wrong in this important matter.’
The boy dropped to his knees on the dirty floor. ‘I’m sorry, sire. Really, really sorry.’
‘You will be punished, Bramlow. For one week, you’ll remain alone in your room, with only bread and milk to eat. A novice Brother will guard you. You are forbidden to wind-speak Uncle Stergos or any other talented person, neither may you scry nor perform any of the other kinds of subtle magic that are usually allowed to you. The watching Brother will know if you disobey.’
‘I – I promise I’ll be good.’ Tears gleamed on the four-year-old’s face. ‘Please don’t punish the monkey!’
‘The animal will be confined to its cage for a sennight,’ said the king, ‘and its keeper will receive a sound thrashing. Keep in mind that it is your fault that they suffer. Now retire to your room and pray for forgiveness until the midnight sun touches the horizon. Then go to bed.’
‘Yes, sire.’ Bramlow rose up, bowed, and trudged away into an inner chamber.
When he was gone the queen spoke to the twins. ‘It was very wrong of you to ask the ladies to bring in the monkey without its chain and collar. A monkey isn’t a person. It can’t be trusted to behave. Do you understand this now?’
Corodon smiled slyly. ‘Bram said it be great fun. It was!’
‘But wrong.’ Orrion’s face was solemn. ‘We sorry, Mama.’
Queen Risalla gathered the boys to her, kissing them. ‘How do you feel today? Do you still cough and sniffle?’
‘No, Mama. All well now.’ Corodon beamed.
‘And did you eat supper before the monkey spoiled the food?’
‘Some porridge,’ Orrion mumbled.
‘Monkey took strawberries,’ Corodon said. ‘We didn’t get none.’
‘Didn’t get any,’ the queen corrected him. She rose to her feet. ‘The ladies will make you milksops to eat in bed. No strawberries for you tonight. That will be your punishment. Now bid your father goodnight.’
Conrig lifted and embraced each boy gravely, looking deeply into their eyes before kissing them. The infinitesimal glint of talent was imperceptible to him, as it was to the Zeth Brethren and every other adept save Conjure-Queen Ullanoth and possibly Snudge – who’d never said a word about it, curse him!
Talent. That blessing and curse was present in all three of his offspring. But Risalla was once again with child, and if God pleased, Conrig would know tonight if the unborn was a normal-minded heir and the Sovereignty secure.
Much later, as the time of Ullanoth’s visitation approached, Conrig and Risalla waited in the king’s private sitting room in the royal apartments. The draperies were drawn against the still-bright sky, but open casements admitted both cool air and the sounds of laughter and dance-music rising from the gardens. Risalla had changed into a summer nightrobe of fine primrose-colored lawn and reclined on a cushioned couch. The hypnagogic draught prepared by Vra-Stergos, which she had swallowed only a few minutes earlier, was already making her drowsy.
‘I still don’t see why this examination is necessary.’ The queen did not bother to hide her resentment. ‘You required no such thing of me when I was pregnant with the other children.’
‘Ullanoth has fashioned a new spell,’ Conrig prevaricated. ‘It will not only tell us the sex of our new child, but also whether or not it has talent.’
‘Talent!’ Risalla’s tone was uncommonly peevish as she drifted between wakefulness and sleep and her usual invincible self-control dissolved. ‘What does it matter if this babe shares poor Bramlow’s arcane abilities? You have your precious heir to the throne in Orrion, and there is always Coro in case…in case…’ Her eyes closed, but she gave a start and was wide awake again. ‘In case of misfortune – may heaven forfend. I don’t see why I must sleep during this procedure, either. Why shouldn’t I know what Ullanoth does to me and to the child in my womb? I hate the notion of her casting a spell on us! I hate her, God forgive me, though I truly know not why.’
Her vehemence startled Conrig. He was fairly certain that she was unaware of the longstanding liaison between him and the sorceress, and the queen’s temperament was ordinarily so coolly dutiful and tranquil that she seemed as incapable of jealousy as she was of sexual passion. In contrast to his mercurial first wife Maudrayne Northkeep, whom Conrig had adored until he came to believe that she could not give him children, Risalla Mallburn kept close custody of her emotions. It had never occurred to him to ask if she loved him; he deemed it sufficient that she was gently mannered, reasonably attractive, intelligent, fertile, and a princess royal of Cathra’s traditional antagonist, the vassal nation of Didion.
‘The Conjure-Queen will do nothing to outrage your dignity,’ Conrig reassured her. ‘She will only look at the child in a special way, without even touching you.’
‘I still hate being in her power. Helpless.’
‘Perhaps it’s your Didionite heritage that makes you uneasy. You have a natural distrust of magic, due to your people’s hostility to the sorcerers of neighboring Moss. And it’s only natural that you should still resent Ullanoth’s rôle in Didion’s…submission to the Sovereignty.’
‘Our defeat!’ Risalla sighed and her eyes slowly closed again. ‘To say nothing of the shame that most of our warriors died not in honest battle, but as the prey of bloodsucking tiny monsters, commanded by your good friend, the Conjure-Queen. All Didion knows that she invoked the Beaconfolk as well as the spunkies to ensure your victory. And so do many of your own nobles, here in Cathra. They believe you are in league with the Lights.’
‘Madam, you don’t know what you’re saying.’ He tried to speak calmly – for, after all, she was hardly conscious and Gossy had assured him that she would remember none of this tomorrow. Yet he had no doubt that Risalla spoke now from deep conviction, freed by the alchymical potion from the constraint of prudence that usually governed her tongue. It was no surprise to Conrig that the barbarous Didionites should believe him to be in thrall to Beaconfolk magic. But if it were true that his own people gave serious credence to the notion…
‘Who among the Cathran nobility has spoken so perfidiously?’ he asked her. But she only turned away and seemed to sleep.
There came a sound of hesitant knocking. The king rose from beside his wife’s couch and opened the door. The corridor was empty except for his elder brother Stergos, the Royal Alchymist, attired in splendid crimson vestments in honor of the festival. Although he was five years Conrig’s senior, he appeared to be much younger, with a clean-shaven round face and curly blond hair that always seemed slightly disordered. Tonight he was obviously ill at ease and his brow was dewed with perspiration.
Stergos whispered, ‘All’s well with Her Grace?’
Conrig nodded and the alchymist came quickly into the apartment, closing and locking the door behind him. ‘I bespoke Ullanoth in Royal Fenguard castle not ten minutes ago. She can ascertain nothing through her ordinary scrying, but if the unborn possesses talent, she will be able to Send to it as she does to you and me. First, let me make certain that your lady sleeps.’ With great care, Stergos lifted one of the queen’s eyelids. The iris with its dilated pupil had rolled upward. ‘Good. Now we must distance ourselves from Risalla if the experiment is to work. Let’s go into the queen’s sitting room.’
They passed through Conrig’s great bedchamber and Risalla’s adjacent one into the spacious solar where the queen and her ladies were accustomed to sew, read, and break their fast. ‘We should be at least twenty ells away from her,’ Stergos said, ‘so our own talent is incapable of giving substance to the Sending.’
‘What then?’
‘I am to bespeak the Conjure-Queen that all is in readiness,’ said his brother, perching on one of the chairs near the cold fireplace. The king took the other one. ‘She will attempt the Sending, while we pray she does not succeed. If Ullanoth walks through that door, it means that the babe’s talent permitted her to materialize beside Risalla.’
‘And I’m futtered once again,’ Conrig murmured bitterly. ‘Damn it, Gossy! If I could but convince the Lords of the South to do away with the impediment, then I’d be safe and so would my sons…What a king young Bramlow would make! Bold as a hawk and sharp as a varg sword! You should have seen the little rogue get the better of that bloody pet monkey this evening.’ He described the scene in the royal nursery, and Stergos had to smile in spite of his nervousness.
‘I punished the lad harshly,’ Conrig admitted. ‘A week’s confinement on bread and milk. He must learn self-discipline if we ever hope to have the talent restriction lifted. The Lords of the South will never yield if they envision a wizard with overt powers sitting one day on the throne.’
Stergos ventured, ‘Shall I windspeak the Conjure-Queen now?’
‘Wait just a moment.’ The king casually covered his mouth with his hand. ‘I must ask your advice on another matter before we converse with Ulla’s Sending. She almost never uses the Loophole to eavesdrop now because of her considerable pain-debt, and if we guard ourselves from scrier’s lip-reading our speech should be secure from her.’
‘What is it, Con?’ Stergos had drawn the hood of his crimson cloak over his head so that his face was concealed.
‘I had disquieting news from Parlian Beorbrook tonight at the feast. You know he’s just come down from an inspection of our Wold Road outposts in western Didion.’
‘Don’t tell me Prince Somarus is up to his old tricks!’
‘No. As far as the earl marshal can tell, the bastard’s laying low for the moment somewhere in the Lady Lakes region. Beorbrook’s news concerns something far more serious: a rumor that Maudrayne may be alive, hiding somewhere in Tarn. A traveler from Donorvale said that the rumor has spread like wildfire over the past two weeks among the fishermen’s taverns of the north-western shore, and thence to the low dives of the Tarnian capital.’
The hooded figure of the alchymist had given a great start as the king spoke his first wife’s name. ‘Saint Zeth preserve us – it’s not possible that Maude lives! The conjoined minds of the Brotherhood searched the entire island, virtually inch by inch, and failed to scry any trace of the Princess Dowager. Even Ullanoth’s Subtle Loophole detected nothing – and the sigil supposedly can oversee anyone, anywhere in the world.’
‘So the Conjure-Queen says. But her close scrutiny took place four years ago, shortly after Maude was thought to have drowned. At the time, Ulla admitted that her search might have been thwarted by Red Ansel Pikan. The magical capabilities of the Grand Shaman of Tarn are unknown to her. He might have been able to block the action of the Great Stone. The painful search effort so debilitated Ullanoth that she was forced to avoid using Loophole for many months. Since then, as far as I know, she has made no further attempt to look for Maude.’
‘What are we to do, Con?’ Stergos’s voice was taut with shock. He and the king had found and read Maudrayne’s secret diary after her presumed death. In it, she had revealed not only that she had conceived Conrig’s child, but also her knowledge of her husband’s arcane taint. ‘If the princess lives and has birthed a son not possessed of talent, you are undone! She knows your secret and could divulge it at any time, with Ansel to testify to the truth of it. Even if your twin sons by Risalla are accepted as normal, the law says that Maudrayne’s boy must inherit your crown if you are deposed.’
‘If she lives! And if she tells what she knows and produces the normal-minded male child. Here is where I require your advice, Gossy. Would it be wise for me to once again enlist the Conjure-Queen in the search for Maude? I’m reluctant to do so, since it would give Ulla even more power over me than she has now. I feel I’d be jumping from the hot griddle into the fire-pit.’
‘My God, yes. Her ambitions…Con, you know I’ve never trusted the woman.’
‘Yes, yes,’ the king said impatiently. ‘Nevertheless, her Loophole probably holds out the best chance of locating Maude and any child she may have had.’
‘Perhaps not, if Red Ansel still keeps the Princess Dowager under his protection. But even the most powerful sorcery has limitations. For instance, Maudrayne and her child could not live permanently inside a spell of invisibility woven by Ansel. Such an existence would be insupportable to the healthy human temperament. Furthermore, a high-spirited woman such as Maude would never consent to be immured within some impregnable magical fortress for years upon end.’
Conrig gave a short mirthless laugh. ‘No, not Maude! She’d take her boy hiking on the tundra and sailing in her yacht on the arctic waters. She’d teach him to ski and to hunt elk and icebears and sea-unicorns. And if she does these things, there are bound to be local people who know about it. In my opinion, she might be sought and found by a clever and talented spy – such as my Royal Intelligencer, Snudge. What do you think, Gossy?’
Stergos hesitated. ‘If Maude is hiding in Tarn, she would surely be protected by the magic of more than one of the local shamans. Ansel would hardly spend all of his time shielding her. He has other responsibilities. Deveron Austrey would have a special advantage over the lesser northern adepts, since his talent is imperceptible to all but the most powerful. Furthermore, he’s impossible to windwatch, so they would be able to observe him only with ordinary eyesight. But what will you do if Deveron does discover that your former wife is alive, and has a son?’
‘That…can be decided later. But I believe there’s only one solution to the problem.’
‘For the love of God, Con, tell me you would not –’
The king cut off his brother’s horrified protest. ‘Say no more! This rumor may prove to be entirely false. We will not discuss the fate of the Princess Dowager now.’
‘As you please, sire.’
Conrig said, ‘I gave Snudge permission to leave Cala Blenholme and visit his new estate following his initiation ceremony. He said he’d ride out at once. You must bespeak him, ordering his return.’
‘Very well. I’ll take care of it as soon as we finish here.’ Stergos threw off his vestment hood. ‘We should delay no longer bespeaking the Conjure-Queen.’
‘Do it then,’ Conrig said.
The Royal Alchymist let his head sink into his hands and called out silently on the wind. After a few minutes had passed, he opened his eyes and said, ‘She will make an attempt to Send immediately.’
They waited, straining their ears, fearing the sound of approaching steps from the room where Risalla lay, but hearing only the distant sounds of music and revelry outside in the gardens. At length Conrig leapt to his feet.
‘I can’t stand it any longer. I’m going in there –’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
The sweet woodsy scent of vetiver wafted into the room. A silhouette was standing in front of the tall undraped window, completely enveloped in a deep-green cloak. Ullanoth’s Sending had flashed into existence with no warning. A hand, pale as milk and wearing a ring of carved moonstone on one long, graceful finger, emerged from the folds of cloth and extended itself toward Conrig.
He hastened to take the hand, brushing the back of it with his lips. He carefully avoided any contact with the ring, which was a powerful sigil named Weathermaker. ‘Gracious Queen, welcome.’
Ullanoth of Moss unfastened her cloak and handed it to the High King as though he were a simple lackey. Except for the purplish shadows about her eyes, her face was as lovely as ever, framed by shimmering long hair that mimicked the pearly interior of certain seashells. Her gown was the same unadorned green samite as her cape, and her belt was gold, with a hanging purse. Around her neck hung a golden chain with a curiously carved small translucent pendant that glowed in the dim room like wan foxfire – the Great Stone named Sender, the third major sigil that she owned. Its power, invoked only at the cost of terrible pain now that her debt to the Lights was so heavy, enabled Ullanoth to inhabit a magical simulacrum of her natural body, in which her soul might travel anywhere in the world while her true flesh lay senseless. The Sending was no vaporous ghost, but rather a warm and solid replica with a full palette of physical sensation, able to carry from its point of origin all clothing and other accoutrements worn or held by the original. It could not, however, draw sustenance from food or drink at its destination, nor could it carry back any foreign object. And if the Sending remained in existence for more than a few hours, the true body would begin to deteriorate mortally.
There was another important limitation to the Sending that only the most advanced arcane practitioners were aware of: it could materialize only near a talented person, from whom it drew magical substantiation.
‘Then Risalla’s unborn child is free of talent!’ Conrig cried joyously.
Ullanoth nodded. ‘Yes. Tonight, I’ve used Vra-Stergos as my substantiator. Let us go to your wife now and determine whether the babe is male or female.’
The three of them went into the room where Risalla lay, but after a few suspenseful moments Ullanoth stepped away from the sleeper’s couch and shook her head. ‘Alas for your hopes, my king! Your wife carries a healthy girl, without arcane talent as all of her sex must be, unless they are of far northern human blood…or doubly descended from the Green Ones.’
Conrig groaned. ‘If the laws of Didion prevailed here, the lass might reign as their great Queen Casabarela did! But Cathra reserves its crown for male issue, and so must my Sovereignty.’
‘Unless the law is changed,’ Stergos put in with a hopeful smile.
‘Don’t be a fool, Gossy,’ the king exclaimed. ‘Why should the Lords of the South agree to change it now, when all save we three believe there are two legitimate male heirs to the throne? We can only hope for a better outcome to a future pregnancy, and meanwhile pray that no enemy learns the secret of my poor sons and I.’
‘There are only two enemies,’ Ullanoth said, ‘that need concern you now.’
Conrig and Stergos regarded her with open dismay, each thinking that she must have heard the rumor about Maudrayne and her son.
But the Conjure-Queen went on to say, ‘My little brother Beynor knows nothing of your own talent – not yet. But he’s up to some kind of mischief with the Salka. I’ve been too indisposed to spy on him closely with the Loophole sigil of late, but my ordinary scrying reveals him to be in a state of unusual excitement. I’ve told you that Beynor spends his time studying the historical archives of his monstrous hosts in the Dawntide Isles. I cannot read lips well, and the Salka have erected magical barriers that dim my unaugmented oversight of their citadel. But I believe that Beynor may have made some important discovery. And he may have shared it with your old enemy, Vra-Kilian Blackhorse, the former Royal Alchymist.’
‘But how?’ Stergos demanded. ‘Our wretched uncle was deprived of all talent by the iron gammadion before being confined to Zeth Abbey. Kilian is unable to speak on the wind himself, nor can he receive any windspoken communication from another. And no humans dare set foot on the Dawntide Isles, so there can have been no written message from Beynor delivered to the abbey.’
‘My brother may have been cursed by the Lights and stripped of his sigils,’ Ullanoth said, ‘but he still retains the strong natural talents he was born with. One of those is the ability to invade dreams. When we were young children, he used to torment me until I learned to shut him out. Fortunately, that defensive ability comes readily to those who are adept at the arcane arts.’
The king nodded thoughtfully, remembering that Snudge had also told him once of being harassed by Beynor while sleeping. ‘So you believe your brother communicates with Kilian through dreams?’
‘Zeth Abbey is well-shielded from windsearching, but I have been able to follow Beynor’s mental footsteps, as it were, to that place many times. I doubt there is any other person residing in the abbey who would be of interest to him.’
‘Beynor and Kilian!’ Conrig mused. ‘What common cause could the two exiles share nowadays? And yet they did conspire against me as I prepared to invade Didion…’
Ullanoth had learned some years ago that both villains shared knowledge of a mysterious hidden trove of sigils. But she was unware that the King already knew of its existence.
‘I shall have to warn Abbas Noachil about this at once,’ Stergos said. ‘He’s very old and ill, but he can order the Brethren to take special precautions against Kilian’s escape.’
‘That would be prudent.’ Ullanoth turned to Conrig. ‘Unfortunately, Beynor has also attempted to invade the dreams of some person residing here in Cala Palace. I learned of this only two days ago, as I scried him on the parapet of the Salka island fortress and followed his windtrace. I don’t know who his intended target was, only that the dreamer successfully repelled Beynor’s effort.’
‘God’s Teeth!’ Conrig exclaimed. ‘Could the bastard have been trying to enter my dreams?’
‘Were you aware of any such assault?’ Ullanoth asked. When Conrig admitted he could recall no such thing, she smiled. ‘Then you’re very likely safe. Your talent, meager though it is, would probably have alerted your sleeping mind to any attempt at forcible entry. Were you an untalented person, however, it’s possible he might have invaded you without your being aware of what was happening.’
‘This is a troubling piece of news,’ Stergos said. ‘If Beynor’s target was not the High King, then who might it have been?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Dream-invasion is an uncommon talent. Certain members of Moss’s Glaumerie Guild have used it in the past to gather information from the minds of ordinary folk, or as a means of subtly coercing dreamers into some activity. More often than not, the invasion fails of its objective unless the dreamer is predisposed to cooperate, is very young, or has impaired willpower.’
‘Will you continue to oversee Beynor’s footprints on the wind,’ Conrig besought her, ‘and warn us if he attempts some wicked ploy among the residents of Cala Palace? I would deem it a great favor.’
‘You ask the impossible. My surveillance of my brother is sporadic at best because I am so drained of strength. I only undertake it to protect myself and my kingdom from his evil designs.’
‘Then what can we do?’ Conrig asked.
‘Nothing except be on guard.’ Ullanoth took her cloak from Conrig’s hands and wrapped it about her once again. ‘It’s time for me to leave you. I dare not let my Sending remain here any longer, for I feel myself growing very weak. Be assured that I’ll notify Vra-Stergos promptly if I should discover anything that you should know.’
Thank you for examining the unborn babe, my dearest queen.’ Conrig made a formal inclination of his head. ‘I regret that your pain will be endured to no good outcome.’
She touched his cheek. ‘We are with one another so seldom now that I welcome the opportunity to be here – even if it can only be in a brief Sending. Consider a voyage to Moss this summer. You can easily contrive an excuse.’
‘It’s a wonderful idea. You’ll be hearing from me.’ He bent over her hand again, and a moment later she disappeared.
Aghast, Stergos whispered, ‘Surely you would not go to her!’
Conrig’s smile was grim. ‘No more than I would dive headlong into the steaming crater of Mornash volcano. But let her have hope.’
The Royal Alchymist spoke anxiously. ‘You know what Kilian must be after.’
‘I know. But the Darasilo Trove can’t be easy to get at, else our uncle would have had his minions seize it years ago…or you and Snudge would have located the bloody thing yourselves.’
‘But –’
‘Brother, we’ll consider the matter tomorrow, when Snudge returns. He knows more about that cache of sigils than anyone else we can trust. For now, I think you and I should carry Risalla to her bed. Then you must bespeak Snudge ordering his return and warn Abbas Noachil to put Kilian and his three cronies into close confinement. Meanwhile, I’ll seek out Earl Marshal Parlian in the gardens and ask his opinion of this fine mess. One thing is certain: I was much mistaken in telling my Royal Intelligencer that this would be a peaceful summer.’ Stergos had given all of the Brothers in the palace permission to set aside their usual duties and enjoy the Solstice entertainments. So he was surprised to find three red-robed figures standing outside the great door that led to the Alchymical Library, engaged in earnest conversation. He vaguely recognized them as visiting scholars, associates of Prior Waringlow who had come down from Zeth Abbey several months earlier to do research on some historical project or other.
‘Why are you tarrying inside the palace on such a beautiful night?’ he asked them, unfastening a large iron key from the ring he wore on his belt. To reach his own rooms, he had to pass through the library.
The Brothers bowed in respectful unison. One of them said, ‘We had hoped to do some studying, Lord Stergos, but found the library locked. Perhaps you’ll admit us –’
‘Nonsense! Go listen to the music and have a cup of wine. Your work can wait.’
‘Certainly, my lord.’
Stergos watched them go, trying to recall their names. But thoughts of what he must say and must not say in the upcoming wind-conversation with Vra-Mattis, the novice Brother assigned to Snudge, distracted him, and he gave up the effort as he fitted the key into its massive lock.
TWO
Drumming. Drumming. Drumming.
Dom dom t’pat-a-pat pom…dom
The sound coming from the little hut beyond the byre was soft but still audible in every room of the arctic steading’s main house, repeating the same simple percussive figure, continuing hour after hour for nearly two days, longer than ever before. Sometimes the beat would falter, the timing spoiled because of inattention or the fatigue of the drummer’s aged wrists and fingers; but after a painful pause the rhythmic sound always began again.
Dobnelu the sea-hag was having a particularly difficult time crossing the barrier this time. She could not recall how many false starts she’d made. Fven a single mistake in the three thousand measured patterns of drumming meant going back to the beginning, but it was unthinkable that she abandon the effort. Not even her dire premonition about the woman and the boy who were her special charges must tempt her to give up. Red Ansel Pikan and Thalassa Dru were waiting beneath the ice. Needing her.
And so was the One Denied the Sky.
Dobnelu could only join them in the starless world by means of the drum-trance, a ritual not especially difficult for Tarnian shamans in the prime of life, but an excruciating ordeal for a woman whose years numbered over four score and ten.
Dom dom t’pat-a-pat pom…dom.
Eyes shut tightly against the brightness of Midsummer Eve, resolutely gripping the bone drumsticks in her gnarled hands, Dobnelu the sea-hag forced herself to go on.
The maidservant Rusgann and the boy were somehow able to sleep through the maddening sound of the drumming, but Maudrayne Northkeep always remained conscious of it, even when she slipped into and out of a troubled half-doze. In disjointed prayers, she begged for an end to the infernal noise.
At last, as always, the end did come. The drumbeats ceased abruptly after a single climactic DOM. There was a sudden silence, broken only by the bleating of a goat in the meadow. The hag had succeeded in opening the door to that other place again. She’d entered and so left her prisoners free of her supervision for at least a day, perhaps even two.
Maudrayne pushed aside the opaque curtain of her cupboard-bed and descended on the stepstool, naked except for the ornate golden necklace with the three great opals that she never took off, her Uncle Sernin’s precious wedding gift that she had worn on the night she cast herself into the sea. The air in the shuttered little room was fresh and pleasantly cool, thanks to the sod roof of Dobnelu’s sturdily built home. Outside, under the endless midsummer daylight, it was probably rather warm. Perfect for what she had planned.
After putting on her clothes, she tiptoed to the partly open door leading to the large central chamber, the combined kitchen and sitting room where her serving woman and the boy slept. The hourglass on the mantelpiece indicated about three in the morning. Little Dyfrig’s nook was wide open and he sat unclothed on the edge of his bed, watching his mother with solemn, intelligent eyes. Neither Maudrayne nor her son needed much sleep in the summertime: their Tarnian blood saw to that. But Rusgann Moorcock was a southerner, and she’d demonstrated that she could sleep through a tundra-deer stampede. Her bed-cupboard’s curtains were shut.
‘No more magic drum,’ Dyfrig whispered to his mother. His hair had the same tawny golden color as that of his father, and he also possessed Conrig’s handsome features and unusual dark brown eyes. A moon earlier, the boy had celebrated his fourth birthday.
Maudrayne put a finger to her lips and beckoned him. He slipped to the floor noiselessly and joined her at the kitchen’s single small window. Leather-hinged at the top and held open by a hook and eye fastened to the low ceiling, it was covered with a screen of black gauze to exclude biting midges. Outside, bright sun shone on the meadow and reflected from the island-strewn expanse of Useless Bay beyond the drop-off into the fjord. A distant iceberg with multiple spires, like a dazzling white castle, hovered on the horizon off Cape Wolf.
Maudrayne pointed to the sea-hag’s holy hut at the edge of the steading and spoke softly into the boy’s ear. ‘Eldmama Nelu has drummed herself into an enchanted sleep again. Her body will stay in the hut for a few days now, while her spirit soars away northward to the icecap of the Barren Lands to talk to the One Denied the Sky and the other witches and wizards. Now that she’s gone, we can leave the farm without her permission and go wherever we please! Would you like to walk along the seashore today and have a treasure hunt?’
He squealed with excitement. ‘Yes! Yes! Maybe we can find whale bones, or scales from a mirrorfish!’
‘Shhh. You’ll wake Rusgann –’
Curtain-rings rattled and the maid’s homely face popped out of her enclosure. ‘I’m already awake, Your Grace.’ A lanky body modestly clad in a homespun shift emerged. ‘And you know very well we’re forbidden to leave the steading circle without Dobnelu along to protect us from danger.’
Ignoring the servant’s admonition, Maudrayne went to the larder, where she gathered rye bread, cheese, a small crock of goosegrease flavored with wild herbs, and some sweet cranberry cakes. ‘There’s no danger,’ she insisted. ‘None at all, except from our own misadventure, and we’ll take great care not to lose our footing on the cliff trail or be caught by the rising tide. Now dress yourself, Dyfi. Visit the backhouse and wash your hands, and we’ll be on our way. We can have a picnic breakfast on the beach.’
The boy threw his clothes on and darted outside with a joyful shout, slamming the door. The maid Rusgann lumbered over to her mistress and stood, fists on hips, scowling in disapproval. ‘Your Grace, the spells protecting us extend only to the ring of white stones around this house and the outbuildings. If we venture outside the magic circle, the Beaconfolk could do us harm. Or some windwatching scoundrel of the king’s might scry us!’
‘Do you know what day this is, Rusgann?’ Maudrayne was serene and smiling. Her long auburn hair, freshly washed and hanging free as she stubbornly insisted upon wearing it, shone like burnished copper. ‘This is the Solstice Eve, a very lucky day. No wicked sorcerers or monsters – not even the Coldlight Army – can harm human beings today.’
‘Huh! I never heard of such a thing.’
‘That’s because you’re Cathran-born. We Tarnians know more about dark magic than you do. As for windwatchers – none of them know we’re in this godforsaken spot except Ansel, who brought us here. No one who matters even knows we’re alive! So I say we’re in no danger. And today my son and I will leave this dreary steading and walk free for hours along the sunny shore without a cranky old witch dogging our heels.’
She wrapped the food in a cloth and put it into a basket, together with a long kitchen knife, a leather bottle of mead, and two wooden cups. There would be plenty of good water from freshets trickling down the cliff face. ‘The only question is, will you accompany Dyfi and me on our holiday, or stay behind and sulk?’
The maid was hauling on her garments. ‘It’s not safe, Your Grace! There’s others that could find us here besides magickers. Like that blue fishing vessel that tarried offshore two tennights ago. Dobnelu said the crew peered at the steading with a spyglass! The old woman was in a rare tizzy about it. It seems that plain eyesight isn’t hindered by her shielding magic. The fishermen could have seen you out by the byre.’
‘Please God, they had! For I recognized the lugger as one belonging to Vik Waterfall of Northkeep Port, where my own family’s castle lies. And since catching sight of it, I’ve thought of nothing but how we might use such a boat to get away from here.’
‘Oh, no, Your Grace!’
‘Stop calling me that, you stupid creature! The only one here worthy of such an honorific is my son.’ She turned away, and her next words came through gritted teeth. ‘And I’ll see Dyfrig gets the crown he deserves…if I don’t die of vexation and melancholy first, trapped in this loathsome place.’
The sturdy maidservant persisted in speaking her mind, as was her habit. Rusgann’s fierce loyalty had never equated with submissiveness. ‘My lady, you owe it to the lad to keep him secure. To obey High Shaman Ansel’s instructions and those of the sea-hag. Life here’s boring, I’ll give you that, but Mistress Dobnelu and the shaman know what’s best for you.’
‘Lately, I’ve had my doubts.’ Maudrayne stared out the window at the desolate grandeur of the fjord and the high tundra above it. The snow that had blanketed the windswept plateau was finally melted now, leaving outcroppings of pink and grey granite and patches of vivid green grass tinged with the purple, yellow, and white of short-lived arctic wildflowers.
Rusgann sniffed. ‘I suppose doing housework and taking care of farm animals is a hard life for a high-born lady like you –’
‘You silly thing! That’s not it at all!’
‘Well, what, for pity’s sake?’ the maid muttered. ‘We have a snug place to stay, plenty of food to eat, and magic to keep your enemies at bay.’
‘We’ve been here for four years, Rusgann, hardly ever leaving the stone circle. I have only a small child and you and that senile witch for company, with infrequent visits from Ansel when he can spare us the time. God knows I’m used to northern winters that are eight months long, but not the isolation we have to endure here in this miserable hovel!’ Maudrayne gestured in disgust at the modest kitchen, which was neat and clean enough now thanks to her own efforts and those of the maid. ‘My family’s castle at Northkeep is a cheerful place, full of people. When I lived there we weren’t forced to stay inside during the long winter nights – not even when the Coldlight Army prowled the sky. My brothers and cousins and I played in the snow and went visiting and bathed in the hot springs. There was singing and feasting and games and bards telling wonderful tales. And in summertime we sailed and hunted and fished and gathered berries and went exploring. This wretched steading might as well be a prison. And Ansel won’t even tell me how long we must stay here.’
‘He said we must remain until there’s no danger to you and the lad. How can you dispute the wisdom of that?’
She stamped away from the window with her blue eyes blazing. ‘And just when will the danger be over? When Dyfrig is a man full-grown? When his damned father is dead? All of life is fraught with peril, yet we don’t spend our time hiding safely under the bed!’
Rusgann made a helpless gesture. ‘You seemed content enough to stay here earlier.’
‘When I believed we had no other choice. When Dyfrig was a baby who couldn’t understand the need for prudence and secrecy. But he’s four now, and wise beyond his years. He needs teachers and companions of his own age. If he’s forced to spend his entire childhood here, his spirit will be stunted – just like those tiny winter-blasted birch trees up on the tundra that never grow more than two handspans high. I can’t let that happen to my son! Surely there are better ways for Ansel to secure our safety. Why can’t we live under the protection of my brother Liscanor at Northkeep instead of in this cramped farmhouse?’
‘You could ask the High Shaman that question when next he visits us. But in the end, you have to trust his judgment.’
‘I used to think Ansel was my loyal friend, whose only interest was our welfare.’ Maudrayne spoke in a low voice and her expression was disillusioned. ‘Lately I’ve come to believe he may have other reasons for keeping us confined here that have little to do with our physical safety.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘When last he came, just after the ice breakup, Ansel and the sea-hag were whispering together in the kitchen, thinking that little Dyfi was napping in his bed-cupboard. You and I were mucking out the byre. The boy heard Ansel say, ‘We must make certain he remains king. He’s the only one strong enough to hold them back. Without him, we have no hope of liberating the Source.’ The boy was clever enough to remember the strange words exactly and he asked me about them.’
Rusgann’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement. ‘I suppose Ansel was speaking of High King Conrig.’
‘Yes. Both Dyfrig and I threaten him – but especially me, since I know a great secret of his that would cost him his throne. Perhaps Ansel hopes to eliminate this threat by keeping us out of the way.’
‘But who is it who must be held back by King Conrig? And what in Zeth’s name is the Source?’
‘I know not which particular enemy Conrig’s Sovereignty must hold in check. He has so many! As for this Source, the last time Ansel spoke of it was after I jumped from the parapet of Eagleroost Castle into Cala Bay. As he rescued me, he spoke mysteriously about what his Source would think if my unborn child and I had died in the icy water.’
‘My lady, I still don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘From other things old Dobnelu has said, I’ve come to believe that Ansel’s Source might have something to do with the person the hag visits during her long trances. Perhaps they are even the same.’
Outside, Dyfrig was calling. ‘Mama! Come out! Let’s have our picnic. I’m hungry.’
Maudrayne Northkeep, who had been wife to Conrig Wincantor and Queen of Cathra, picked up the basket and headed for the door. She looked over her shoulder and said to Rusgann, ‘I believe that Ansel and Dobnelu and this Source may be playing some deep magical game. To them, Dyfrig and I are nothing but pawns on their arcane gameboard – and so, evidently, is my former husband, the Sovereign of Blenholme. But I’ll be no one’s gamepiece willingly, and neither will my son. This is the last summer we’ll spend here, Rusgann. We’re going to escape.’
The handmaid’s mouth dropped open in consternation.
Maudrayne laughed. ‘Don’t stand there gaping, woman. If you’re coming to the shore with us, step lively.’
She sailed out the door, and with Dyfrig skipping at her side went through the outbuildings toward the flowery meadow, where honeybees and boreal warblers foraged, and a herd of goats and sheep with their young grazed the fresh grass. At the edge of the enchanted circle, Maudrayne told the boy to wait while she went to the holy hut nearby and looked inside.
The place was windowless, but light entered through a smokehole in the roof. Dobnelu lay unconscious on a rickety cot, her discarded magic drum beside her. She was a small person who could not have weighed seven stone, dressed for the ritual in a tattered blue silk robe that had once been magnificent and costly. Her head had only a few wisps of white hair and the skin of her skull was so translucent that blood vessels seemed to cover it like a netted cap. Her eyes, large and black and smoldering with arcane energy when she was awake, were shuttered by crinkled lids. Her mouth hung slightly ajar, showing a few stumpy teeth. From time to time her lips moved soundlessly.
‘Where do you journey?’ Maudrayne whispered. ‘Whom do you talk to?’
The former queen’s hand stole into the basket where the sharp kitchen knife lay and she fingered the long blade. It would be easy to take the sea-hag’s life while she was entranced and helpless. But would such a deed be justifiable, even to permit their escape? The old woman was terrible-tempered and imperious but without real malice. She had opened her home to three refugees at Ansel’s request (complaining loudly all the while), but had treated little Dyfrig with unfailing kindness, so that he came to love her and called her Eldmama Nelu. Maude and Rusgann she had used as domestic slaveys and farmhands, berating them mercilessly when they were clumsy or negligent. But she had never punished them with her magic.
I cannot kill the witch, Maudrayne realized. Nevertheless, I won’t rest until I find a way to escape without doing her serious harm.
She left the hut and closed the door behind her. Rusgann was waiting with Dyfrig, carrying her own cup and an extra bottle of mead. Maudrayne put the things into the basket, handed it to the maid, then led the way through the pasture to the steep path down the cliff.
After the picnic breakfast was eaten, the three of them embarked on the promised treasure hunt along the narrow fjord beach. Good food and plenty of drink had cheered Rusgann so that she put her former misgivings aside. The bay waters sparkled under the bright sky. Kittiwakes, fulmars, and other birds nesting on the rough rock walls and sea-pinnacles made a raucous din. Green sedges, cliff-ferns, and tufts of white starwort grew in sheltered high places, while some deeply shadowed stretches of shingle above the tide-line were still heaped with slow-melting slabs of ice driven ashore by the winter westerlies.
The tide was receding. They hiked along the emerging sands and slimy boulders below the fjord cliffs for hour after hour, finding all sorts of interesting things: colorful agate pebbles, net floats, shells, the skull of some small animal, and a freshly dead mirrorfish two ells long from which the boy gleefully scraped a heap of huge, gleaming scales. There was even a chunk of white quartz with embedded metallic specks that might have been gold. Maudrayne carried all the treasures in the basket, along with the remains of the food.
Dyfrig raced ahead tirelessly, pursued by laughing Rusgann. After a while the two of them were lost to Maudrayne’s sight behind a jutting promontory at the end of the fjord beach.
She brooded as she hurried to catch up with them. Escape from Dobnelu’s steading was not going to be easy. The sea-hag was a vigilant guardian except when she was sunk in one of her trances or stupefied by strong drink, as happened when changing weather made her bones ache. The drumming happened only at irregular intervals, so they would probably have to rely on ardent spirits to disable Dobnelu’s wind-searching ability. Fortunately, Rusgann was an expert distiller of malted barley liquor, and there was plenty left from last year’s batch. However, tempting the old woman to overindulgence without arousing her suspicions would be tricky.
As the raven flew, Northkeep Castle and its surrounding villages lay only sixty leagues to the south-east, on Silver Salmon Bay; but to get there traveling overland was virtually impossible. Away from the shore, this region of Tarn was a trackless plateau of rolling tundra and bogs. Game would be the only food source unless they waited for the berries that ripened at summer’s end. Maudrayne was an experienced hunter, but without a bow and arrows, she could take birds and animals only by means of inefficient snares. Nor was the upland wildlife entirely innocuous: even if they managed to evade the bears, snow-lions, and wolf packs, biting midges might well eat them alive.
Following the shoreline meant fewer insects and predators, and the tidepools were full of mussels and crabs and stranded small fish. But the irregularity of the coast route more than doubled the distance to the castle, and the going would be appallingly hard, especially for a small child. South of Dobnelu’s home fjord, the shore was jumbled rock and saltmarsh, rather than easily traveled sand. Below Useless Bay lay another broad inlet with a river delta and treacherous flats that could be crossed only by means of ski-like mudshoes. The final obstacle before Silver Salmon Bay and the settled lands held by her elder brother, Sealord Liscanor, was a precipitous headland so sheer that it could only be climbed with the aid of ropes.
No, only an idiot would think of escaping on foot. The terrain was too difficult and the journey would take too long. Dobnelu – or Ansel himself – would be certain to find them with windsight long before they reached Northkeep Castle. Only one course of action had any real chance of success: escaping the same way they had arrived – by boat.
Fishermen came only rarely into Useless Bay, fearing its treacherous shoals as much as the sorcery of the infamous sea-hag who dwelt there. But the sighting of Vik Waterfall’s lugger – and Dobnelu’s warning about the sailors having a spyglass – had given Maudrayne an idea. The next time a boat appeared offshore, she’d try to signal to it from a place out of the old woman’s sight. She’d proffer the valuable opal necklace, and use handsigns to tell the crew what she wanted and where and when to pick her up. If she was lucky, one of the men might recognize her, even though ten years had passed since she sailed her sloop-rigged yacht among the fishing fleet in Northkeep Port, before going south to become the bride of Conrig Wincantor…
She had almost reached the end of the rocky point that separated the long fjord beach from the next cove, into which Rusgann and Dyfrig had evidently vanished. She paused for a moment, setting down the basket and looking out to sea, past the numerous barren islands and shallows that gave the bay its discouraging name, to the distant open water where the great iceberg drifted. As a proficient sailor in northern waters, she knew that with cautious navigation and a fair wind, even a small craft might reach Northkeep in a little over half a day. Given a few hours’ head start, even if Dobnelu woke from her drunken slumber and bespoke Ansel of their escape, he would never catch them at sea unless he conjured up a storm that risked killing them.
And Ansel doesn’t want us dead, she said to herself, else he would have left us to our fate long ago. No, our deaths would somehow spoil his great game.
Mulling the possibilities, Maudrayne made her way around the end of the promontory, climbing among huge granite boulders veined with white quartz and overgrown with thick mats of slippery seaweed. This part of the shore was unfamiliar. In their abbreviated outings with the old woman, she and the boy had never gone so far away from the steading. When the tide turned, the easily traversed sections of these rock piles would probably be submerged, and Maudrayne was beginning to be concerned about getting back safely with Rusgann and Dyfrig ahead of the flow.
The next cove was small and extremely steep-sided, with a towering islet poking up amidst a welter of exposed reefs a few hundred ells offshore. The boy and the handmaid were nowhere in sight, perhaps concealed among the many large rocks at the base of the cliff. She was ready to call out to them when she caught sight of something that brought her to a standstill with her heart pounding.
Barely visible in its anchorage on the far side of the high island was a single-masted fishing lugger with a blue hull. It was almost certainly the same boat that had cruised past two tennights ago.
Dear God! Was it possible that Rusgann had signaled Vik Waterfall to come ashore?
In her haste, she tripped and fell, spilling the contents of the basket into a tidepool. She muttered an oath and hurried to retrieve only the important things – the knife and the finely made wooden cups – thrusting them into the capacious pockets of the peasant apron that was part of her everyday garb at the steading. Unencumbered now, she scrambled over the rocks as fast as she could. Some of them were house-sized or even larger, with narrow gaps between them that had to be threaded with care. She was still unable to see much of the cove shoreline ahead, but she was encouraged by the occasional sight of footprints on patches of wet sand. Dyfrig and Rusgann had certainly come this way.
At last she came out onto the narrow beach, and pulled up short.
About twenty ells away, a leather coracle was drawn up on the strand, one of the lightweight watercraft with whalebone frames that the smaller Tarnian sailing boats often used as tenders. Two men stood near it, hailing her approach with eager shouts. Rusgann sat on the pebble-strewn sand a short distance away from them, with her back pressed against a half-buried boulder and Dyfrig huddled against her skirts. The maid’s hair was disheveled and her face distorted by fury.
The older of the two men came striding toward Maudrayne, and her heart sank as she realized that he was not her affable old acquaintance Vik Waterfall but rather the latter’s younger brother Lukort, a character notorious in former years for his violent temper and unsavory dealings. Eleven years ago, the Waterfall clan had banished him for stealing lobsters from the traps of other fishermen. Yet here he was, wearing a skipper’s cap, in charge of his brother’s boat.
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